If we ever master space travel should we interfere with other civilizations?
Basically think of the prime directive from Star Trek. They aren't supposed to really interfere with a species development if their technology is primitive in comparison. If you've seen the latest Star Trek movie you know it begins with Kirk and the Enterprise saving a tribe of primitive aliens from a volcano. He ends up being seen by the natives and later on Starfleet pretty much says the right thing to do would of been to do nothing and let the planet die, even though they had the capability to save them.
So let's say one day in the future we master space travel and find there are a whole bunch of aliens on different worlds with different cultures. Should we take on the same approach Starfleet does?
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
Okay but remember this definitely includes potentially letting entire civilizations die even though you can easily save them. Though remember Starfleet has flat out tried to help other advanced races..that were advanced, just not as advanced as Starfleet, but they still were ill equipped to deal with certain situations.
So it's almost like you need to reach a certain level of technology before you even deserve help.
This reminds me of a hilarious story from the "Ancient Aliens" show. There was a supposed crashed ship the government found..with dead aliens in it and one alien that was very near death. So what do they do? They quite literally say they bring a priest with to give this thing it's "last rites".
I just can't get over the arrogance of that, even though it's most likely not true, it just seems like something we'd do.
I remember reading this short story about some priests that go to Mars(or some other planet) to preach the word of God. Only to find out they wasted their trip because the Martians are energy beings and had no need for religion because they'd evolved to a point where they were above sin.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
Last edited by Surtur on Mar 28th, 2016 at 01:17 PM
Fear of unintended consequences, I suppose. I'm not very familiar with Star Trek, but what was the Starfleet's rationale for their policiy of non-interference?
__________________ And from the ashes he rose, like a black cloud. The Sin of one became the Sin of many.
They just don't want to interfere with a planets natural development. I think they reach out to people once they invent the warp drive, but until then they stay away.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
Re: If we ever master space travel should we interfere with other civilizations?
The real question is if we could even avoid interfering with other civilizations. I don't think we could tbh. Even if governments gave orders to lay off, private companies and individuals would start mucking around.
__________________
“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
Well in the movie Kirk attempts to help a civilization when a volcano is going to go off and he hides the starship underwater and sends in a small shuttle to the volcano that wouldn't be seen by the people, then they drop in some cold fusion grenade. But along the way shit goes wrong and they have to expose the spaceship to the primitives in order to save Spock.
Basically when Kirk's mentor at Starfleet finds out he essentially says he wouldn't of put his crew in the situation to begin with, meaning he was essentially saying he'd of let them die. Starfleet even knew in advance about the volcano and that primitives lived there but had only sent a team to "survey" it.
Spock, who pretty much knows every Starfleet regulation, says there is absolutely no exception to the rule of the prime directive. To the point where technically the right thing to do as far as regulations go would even be for a captain to allow one of his crew members to die.
But we could even take it a step beyond stepping in to prevent outright extinction. In Star Trek they have food replicators, so they can utterly do away with hunger. If we had this technology would we share it with other species that might need it?
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
Last edited by Surtur on Mar 29th, 2016 at 01:05 PM
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